Columnist Susan Snyder: Father says dress code cloaks rights

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2004 | 7:52 a.m.

Donald Jacobs says his daughter's refusal to comply with a stricter-than-usual dress code at Liberty High School isn't a simple matter of obeying or disobeying the rules.

He says the code, imposed by the school's principal, goes above and beyond the district-wide "standard school attire" by mandating that only khaki bottoms and red, white or blue shirts are suitable student attire.

Jacobs says the school's administration circumvented district policies by failing to poll parents before enacting the stricter code. But even that's not the biggest rub, he said in our telephone conversation last week. He called after reading a Sept. 26 Valley Views column on the topic.

"School logos and school slogan shirts are OK, but others aren't," Jacobs said. "To me, that's censorship. It's, 'You can have what we say you can have.' "

Jacobs' daughter Kim is a Liberty High junior who repeatedly has been suspended from school because she refuses to follow the code and repeatedly wore T-shirts emblazoned with slogans and insignias associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Under the Liberty policy, shirts don't have to have a collar or buttons, Jacobs said. And some students head into class wearing men's underwear-type T-shirts -- hardly the the trim, groomed appearance one would think a dress code hopes to achieve.

Jacobs said he sees them when he goes to the school to pick up his daughter's assignments and homework. She is studying at home with the help of a tutor from church.

"It hurts me to keep her out of school," the father said.

It hurts Kim too. She can do the assignments at home but receives zeroes for pop quizzes and classroom participation.

So why does a father allow it to continue? Actually, I wondered why he allowed it to happen in the first place. Jacobs said he has had a problem with the strict Liberty policy since summer, before his daughter entered the school or purchased $200 worth of shirts bearing slogans they knew didn't fit the code.

"She and her grandmother and I sat down and talked about it," Jacobs said of the decision to allow Kim to make her clothing choices.

And she chose to wear the shirts.

Clark County School Board members later this month are to consider a revision to school dress code policies that would require support from 50 percent of families "plus one" to enact a stricter code. But it would grandfather in schools such as Liberty for the rest of the school year. So nothing would change for Kim unless she stops wearing the shirts of her choosing to school.

Jacobs said he supports dress codes. He also knows his daughter might one day work for a company that enacts a strict one.

"But this is a public school," not a private business, he added.

"I asked them to expel her so this would go before the school board and let the elected officials decide," Jacobs said. "But I was told they would never file papers to expel her and keep filing suspensions. They are really trying to break us."

After a certain number of suspensions, Jacobs said his daughter, a solid-B student, could be referred to a school for students with behavioral problems.

A pity.

For some of the behavioral problems seem to be among the adults.